Jeff Bagwell – 1994 Upper Deck

Nitwits, He’s A Hall-Of-Famer

Yes, there were a preponderance of home runs hit during Mr. Bagwell’s era in baseball. There have been peaks and valleys of all kinds of stats since Henry Chadwick started to record games in his notebook.

There have also been a preponderance of idiots voting for the Hall of Fame. Usually it’s on the Veteran’s Committee, but then there’s Bill Conlin and his ilk who feel they have to ‘defend the game’. Whatever, dude…

Without advanced metrics, it’s difficult to compare one era to another. There are many Hall-Of-Famers that I’d love to crowbar out because they were put in out of ignorance or cronyism. The fact that Ron Santo is not in the HOF, and Tim Raines and Robby Alomar are waiting, and Pete Browning and others from the old AA aren’t in, and guys like Fred Lindstrom are in says it all.

I read on one of the blogs I subscribe to that some doofus wasn’t going to vote for Jeff Bagwell, for some reason or another. You know, there are some guys like Rafael Palmeiro and Mark McGwire where I can see a glimmer of a coherent argument against their inclusion. (But it falls flat – players have tried to ‘enhance’ forever and the real enemy of the integrity of the game was and IS gambling, lest the game devolve into NASCAR / WWF / Lingerie Football.)

But Bagwell? C’mon man…

He could flat our rake.

He stole 202 bases.

He was a plus fielder at first.

And, for the sanctimonious about you who decry free agency and what it has done for team identity (never mind that players used to move around a lot anyway), he played his entire career for the Astros.

I can’t undo the past mistakes of the HOF, but what I can do is point out idiotic asinine arguments.

Bagwell’s a Hall-Of-Famer. QED. And if he doesn’t get in, he can join Santo, Browning, Raines, Alomar, etc. on my HOF.